


Lost

by mercibun



Series: Cloris [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Also including spoilers for chapters 4/5/start of KOTFE, Angst, Cloris has been through some stuff honestly, Cloris romanced Aric but since it's a minor mention i'm not putting it in relationships, Gen, Mentions everyone in Havoc and the rescue crew, Minor Character Deaths, Trooper Storyline Spoilers, my characters suffer a lot and i refuse to apologise, shameless angst, takes place during chapter V of KOTFE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 06:36:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12648135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercibun/pseuds/mercibun
Summary: Major Cloris Macabre has lived through thirty ... well, technically thirty five years of hell. Plus a few days.The only common theme in her life was that she had lost everything, over and over again.





	Lost

Cloris Macabre had known loss.

Hell, loss had kickstarted her life- her parents had lost theirs to the war when she was a kid. She still had nightmares about it. She had been picked up from Ord Mantell, her home planet, and raised as a smuggler's daughter; but Cloris had always been better at following rules than Malva, her adoptive mother. Despite the need for deceit in Malva’s line of work, Cloris remained blunt and truthful.

At her earliest possible opportunity, Cloris enlisted into the Republic’s military. As she had passed her examinations with flying, almost frightening colours, she was shipped off to Coruscant almost straight away to be trained. The two kept in touch, but in a way, moving away from the homely environment of Malva’s ship was Cloris’ second experience of loss.

In her second year of training, she and her squad had been taken captive by a gang of criminals on some backwater planet that Cloris didn't know the name of. Her cuffs had been too tight, and she had been the only one to make it out alive when a rescue did finally come. Their unit had been among the best in their year at the Academy, but she hadn't been close to the group, not particularly. They were all boys; they messed around and teased her for actually following protocol - but they had been her unit.

In her final year of training, her first love was killed in a sabotaged combat exercise. Alya had been a genius, all smiles and sparkling silver eyes- a tireless Rattataki woman who followed the rules in her own way without ever actually breaking them. They had exchanged gifts, and a genuine promise that if things settled, they'd go out for a drink. Cloris had worn the gift of a headdress ever since. Alya had drawn Cloris in enough that when she died, it hurt. She was old enough to remember that pain. It hurt at the funeral, hurt worse on graduation when Alya’s name was skipped on the roll. The Academy never had caught the weasel that had ruined Alya’s equipment.

They had been nineteen.

So five years later, when Cloris was chosen to be the newest member of Havoc Squad, best of the best, overseen by none other than General Garza herself, her pride was undermined by a queasy feeling that the green-eyed Zabrak had been determined to quell. This feeling had only intensified when she arrived on Ord Mantell; the last place she had expected - or wanted - to go. At least her CO Tavus seemed nice, unlike that snark of a Lieutenant that was their contact, Aric Jorgan.

Naturally, it had all gone to shit, and Cloris began to wonder if she was cursed. The defection hadn't been her fault, she knew that, but it was again a loss, something dumb and ridiculously important that the red-haired woman would feel guilty for over many years. As Havoc Squad began to rebuild around her, first (to her initial chagrin, but she quickly learned that he valued rules and morals in an eerily similar way to her) Jorgan, then Dorne, then Forex, and even Vik and Yuun. Cloris kept her distance at first despite always being friendly and polite- just in case.

Jaxo … Her fault. Cloris wouldn't deny that. Couldn't. She should have followed her instinct and not gone out on that girls’ night. Perhaps then she wouldn't have felt so miserable, so empty, when forced to make that decision of one life against three hundred. After that incident, Cloris had sat in her chambers in silence for what Elara deemed to be far too long, but really she was just thinking. She didn't understand why Elara seemed so nervous about her doing that- Cloris was doing just fine in the field.

The scariest part for Cloris was when she had kissed Aric for the first time. Or had he kissed her? Those things got a little jumbled in Cloris’ head sometimes, but it had reignited a feeling that the Captain had thought was gone for good with Alya. It felt wonderful to be close to someone again- even if this someone was her executive officer. Hell, in the eyes of the rules that made it worse. Not that anyone but them knew much about the budding relationship until after their victory on Corellia, where Aric had proposed. They’d known each other for almost four years by then. Love was a funny thing, she had conceded in that moment.

A year and a half later, Ziost had hit Cloris hard, right from the start when Theron - someone she considered more of a sibling-like friend than an ally by then - had gone MIA, for a while assumed dead. With Garza out of the picture, she'd needed to grow up and make some tough choices, and she didn't regret them. However that didn't stop her from staring in horror from the safety of the orbital station when the planet seemed to throw up dust and coat itself in a thick layer of death. She might not have been close to anyone who was still on the ground, both Theron and Lana - of all people, Minister Beniko had been there too - had made it out alive; but the sheer number of dead brought Cloris to a standstill in front of the station window. She felt sick, but she didn't cry.

When Darth Marr died at the hands of his former Emperor only months later, Cloris did not feel her own loss, but she felt for Lana. That surprised her, but he had been her mentor. Her cuffs had been too tight while she watched her tentative ally die, and part of her hadn't been living in that moment. Part of her was back as a POW during her training days, innocent enough that she couldn't speak but wary enough to know what would happen next. The only death of the evening that she did not regret had been that of Valkorion by her own beloved blaster, but she soon found out that of all people, he wasn't gone.

Five years passed as she was thrown into carbonite. Cloris lived day after day in a nightmare that refused to end, charging into fights in her dreamscape and stubbornly refusing Valkorion’s help even as he tried to manipulate her into taking it. Her heart had hardened into apathy towards power from the constant ways the Emperor made her see her friends and husband die, and when she was released by a very grown-up Lana she didn't quite believe that an old ally had come to save her life. Lana, of all people, seemed to be an unlikely saviour. They had been on different sides of the war. High-ranking officials on different sides of the war, to be exact. Not that Cloris wasn't grateful, of course- she had just expected someone from her own side.

The thing that made her cry for the first time since being thawed was when she had checked her mail aboard the Gravestone. She had, in a way, expected more than three messages over the space of five years, but the fact that one was from Aric made her heart lift temporarily. Until she read the contents. It was dated two months into her imprisonment.

Skimming over the letter, that was the moment that it sunk in that Cloris was on a completely strange planet after five years of being imprisoned in carbonite. Havoc was nowhere to be seen, and her squad was currently made up of a Sith, an exiled veteran, and a reprogrammed droid; all of whom thought that she - a Republic soldier who was in no way Force-sensitive, could save them from the tyrant that had imprisoned Cloris in the first place. It wasn't the first time she had started from nothing, but something about this time felt miserably wrong.

She couldn't quite stop the tear than rolled down her cheek, the way her breath caught in a silent sob when she closed the datapad that had been connected to her details and held the device close to her chest as if it would bring her old life back. She had a mission to complete, but she would allow herself this moment before heading out to save the galaxy again.

Havoc wasn't lost.

She was.


End file.
